Digital LEarning Services
April 21, 2020
News You Can Use
Apple EDU Learning Series
The Apple Education Learning Series is now available to support schools and educators with remote learning resources. This series is presented by the Apple Education Leadership and Learning teams. Each video is designed to help educators use the built-in features of their Apple products to enable remote learning for all students.
As a follow-up to the series, educators can also participate in virtual conferences led by our Apple Professional Learning Specialists. Each virtual conference will run for approximately 30 minutes and will provide an opportunity for educators to engage in dialogue with our team about the content provided in each video. Virtual conferences are available in English only.
Listed below are the Virtual Conference Topics:
- Prepare Resources for Remote Learning
- Create and Share Presentations and Demos
- Create Engaging Videos with Clips
- Connect and Collaborate Remotely
- Accessibility: Improve Reading Fluency
- IT Spotlight #1: Prepare Devices for Learners
Select this link to learn more about each topic, when sessions are available, and how to join.
Online Course Design Tip #4
-Tracey Meyer
Digital Learning Professional Learning
Not enrolled in the Digital Learning Services course? Select this link to enroll. Once enrolled, navigate to DL Professional Learning.
Week of April 20th - April 24th
Tuesday, April 21st
- 9:30am:
Open Lab: Canvas Support - Select this link to add to your calendar and for the Zoom link. - 1:00pm:
Creating with Canva - Select this link to add to your calendar and for the Zoom link.
- 9:30-10:15am:
Using Zoom for Virtual Meetings (Repeat) - Select this link to add to your calendar and for the Zoom link. (Please note, this is a 45 minute session.) - 1:00pm:
- Creating Hyperdocs and Choiceboards - Select this link to add to your calendar and for the Zoom link.
Thursday, April 23rd
- 9:30am:
Virtual Field Trips - Select this link to add to your calendar and for the Zoom link. - 1:00pm:
Making Video Tutorials with QuickTime (Repeat) - Select this link to add to your calendar and for the Zoom link.
Digital Learning Needs Your Help!
Learning Management Systems
SeeSaw: Activities
The Seesaw Activity Library is a growing resource of grade-level and subject specific activities, created by teachers like you! Find ideas that inspire your students to reflect on and share their learning in creative ways. You can also share activities you like with other teachers by following the instructions here!
To get started with the Seesaw Activity Library, use the steps below to save and assign an activity:
- Tap the green Add+ button
- Choose Assign Activity
- You can browse the Activity Library by grade and/or subject area. Tap on a collection or activity to view the student instructions and teacher notes. Then, tap the heart icon to save the activity to your personal library.
- Once you've checked out the Seesaw Library, you can tap the 'My Library' tab to view all activities you have created or saved from the Seesaw library!
Collections are a great way to organize activities in the 'My Library' tab. You can add your activities to a collection by tapping [...] below a saved activity and then tapping 'add to collection'. - Tap any activity, then tap 'Assign' to publish to your class(es) as is, or tap [...] below the post, then tap ‘copy and edit activity’ to customize the activity.
Google Classroom: More Tips!
Use a Weekly Topic to Organize Your Assignments:
Under normal circumstances, I would usually recommend a variety of topics to address the needs of individual teachers and students, but right now, we need simplicity.
From the Classwork page, you can create topics to organize assignments and materials. Since many schools are embracing a weekly assignment strategy, creating a topic for the week is very logical. (If your school is still distributing many assignments per day, try using a “TODAY” topic.)
- Click on the “Create” button, then select “Topic.”
- Create a topic for the week, like “Weekly Assignments Due April 3,” to also make it clear when these assignments are due.
Create a “Resources and Tutorials Topic” and Keep it at the Top of the Classwork Page
As you try to assist students and parents at home, you may find yourself sharing and creating tutorials, cheat sheets, and other resources. Make these easy to find by creating a special topic and keeping that topic at the top of the page.
Click-and-drag to move topics around and organize the Classwork page. I would suggest keeping the resource topic at the top, and the weekly assignments topic for the current week in the number two spot.
--This information is from 10 Google Classroom Tips for Remote Learning by Kasey Bell.
Canvas: Using Announcements
Bonus, you can pin your most recent announcements to your homepage. The default is 3 and I recommend you stick with that. To do this go to your course, then Settings, then under Course Details, scroll to the bottom and click on more options. You should then see an option to check Show recent announcements and the number you would like to display. Make sure you save these changes before closing out!
Tools You Can Use
Organize a Messy Desktop in a Flash!
Did you know your Desktop can organize itself?
Just hold down Control, click the Desktop, and select Use Stacks. To see a short demo, visit this link!
This is especially helpful if you are making video recordings that show your desktop!
Digital Learning Services
Email: DLF@littleelmisd.net
Website: https://www.littleelmisd.net/Domain/1401
Location: 300 Lobo Lane, Little Elm, TX, USA
Phone: (972)947-9340
Twitter: @LEISDDigLearn